My Feedback and Suggestions after 100 Hours of Play
First of all I'd like to say hello, I am a returning Trials player. I've been playing since Trials HD back on the 360, and have played Trials Evolution on 360, Trials Evo Gold Edition on PC, and Trials Fusion on PC. I do apologize in advance if I reuse words too often, or my wording is weird. I'm not a reviewer by profession.
Every time RedLynx releases a new Trials game, my life is gone. For the next few weeks Trials becomes my life and as my favourite game series to-date, and I continue playing it for a few years. HD will always have a special place in my heart, and Evo was an improvement over HD in all aspects. While Fusion was quite a controversial release I cannot lie, I still enjoyed it, and it *did* have some superiorities over Evo, namely in it's content creator. I will be referencing these earlier titles heavily in the review, what Rising improves upon, and what needs improving by comparison. I will not reference Blood Dragon, as I have not played it.
For the sake of the review section I will split it up in relevant sections.
Firstly:
Gameplay
I wanted to start off on a positive in this review, gameplay is one where I feel Rising excels. Trials Rising, compared to the previous entry I played (Fusion) seems to have a much greater variety in terms of track types. Fusion seemed, on beginner to medium difficulty tracks, to consist mostly of "roller coaster" type tracks where simply holding the throttle down and leaning was sufficient to pass the finish line. Rising, by contrast, has a good variety of tracks that require a bit more effort and finesse to pass with a decent time. It makes for greater variety between tracks and greater difference between different skill levels. I find myself replaying tracks to find that line and get a good time with much more enthusiasm than in Fusion.
Bike behavior seems to be slightly more representative of the bike performance in Fusion, than in Evolution, with my personal preference being the latter, but for the most part the bikes behave in a fairly predictable manner when the game is performing well, apart from the occasional wheel clipping into the ground on a landing. The Rhino is very fun and easy to ride, and the Mantis is very capable, if not still a handful.
While some may not enjoy the contract system, I personally enjoyed it as optional opportunities to challenge myself and even get a better time. The thrill of beating your own previous time while pulling off 23 back-flips is quite satisfying.
Performance
Unfortunately this seems to be one areas Rising fails quite miserably. I'm playing the PC port of Trials Rising, and despite maxing out at 80% of my CPU cores, and only using 6 of my 16gb of RAM, on some tracks the game will experience inconsistent frame rate issues, such as micro stutter, and some times the game will slow down to 1/2 speed, making it very difficult to correctly judge the velocity of the motorcycle, especially in levels such as Thousand Cloud Village. The game is rarely 'unplayable' due to these issues, however it can make getting a competent time on a track a lot more challenging, but not in a satisfying way. I don't know how much VRAM this game uses, but I would not be surprised if it is capping out my GPU.
User Interface
I am quite a big fan of the world map presented to the player in Rising's track selector. It really enforces that idea that the play is on a world tour, and the option to select tracks by selecting the stadium of the relevant cup makes it a lot easier to find tracks when the map starts to get filled up.
My only criticism of the track selection UI is the fact that when another player sets a new time on a track, it can sometimes shroud the marker for another track.
Track central's UI could be a lot better. The layout in Evo was very intuitive and easy to navigate without having to use a search function, with many categories on the TC home screen with, a unique thumbnail and tracks in that category being shown after the thumbnail was selected. I'm unsure if it is a bug, but the fact that once a player completes a track it returns them to the TC home page instead of the page they were last on is awfully irritating. The layout in Rising feels like an awfully inefficient use of space, and an update would be appreciated.
Bike and Rider Customization
One of the many criticisms Fusion received was it's nerfed customization compared to Evolution. As an artist myself I was very upset about this in Fusion. Rising, however, having reintroduced the full clothing and bike customization of Evo, with the additional sticker customization is a godsend. Being able to express myself in the design of my bike and riding gear is very fulfilling, soaking up a great deal of my playtime. In addition the ability to share your designs in the store, and make in-game currency on your creations is very welcome.
Track Editor
I am currently in the process of making a track with the editor that allows the player to control a fully physics powered truck, with 6 wheel drive, steering and suspension. The fact the editor allows me to do this always blows me away, since the editor is soo intuitive and powerful at the same time. The complexity meter on the PC port of Rising is incredibly huge, and the change I am most happy about is the raising of the Physics hard cap from 90m to 600m, which previously in Fusion was a limitation that contributed to me not releasing a track I worked incredibly hard on.
Object variety in this entry is phenomenal. The fact it has all the items from Evo, Fusion, and Blood Dragon, in addition to the new pieces provides the creator with an astonishing variety of possibilities when making a track.
The only unfortunate things about the editor is it lacks the dynamic music system that was present in Fusion (before it was nerfed) and seems to be quite unstable. Crashes are common, and saves made can be randomly removed from the game upon rebooting.
Aesthetic and Setting
Out of all the Trials entries I've played Rising has my favourite aesthetic and setting. HD had the warehouse, Evo had the junkyard (and later on the circus and wasteland), Fusion had the conceptual Utopia (and later of dystopia, and cyberpunk). Rising's aesthetic feels the most real (which helps my immersion) and the most lively. The fact NPCs are present in this game really helps push that feel that the player is actually on a Trials World Tour, and the colour pallet and track aesthetics really help push the idea that we are this Rising Star in the Trials and Motocross scene.
The entire "Trials World Tour" setting feels like the most appropriate out of all the games, especially in comparison to Fusion, which I personally feel pushed the 'story' a bit too hard. All Trials ever needed in my opinion is a setting. Rising really does makes me feel like I am the rider, and I am moving up as I complete tracks. I enjoy that fact that the player and their motorcycle is displayed on the home screen, so you can see your progress every time you boot up the game.
The addition of the real life brands KTM (much love), FOX, and REDBULL is very welcome as it helps solidify the immersion and the belief that you the player are a rising star. A shame that there are no sponsor body kits for the bikes though. (Would love a kit that turns the Rhino into a KTM EXC-F or a 790 Adventure R).
Music
In every trials game I've played I've enjoyed a great deal of the selection of music; HD's drum and base, Evo's heavy metal, and Fusion's techno/dubstep and glitch-hop. Rising is no exception. I was pleasantly surprised to find Rising is the first entry to have licenced music in addition to the OSTs of the previous games, and most of the hiphop, punk, drum and base, and metal has been added to my personal libraries for every day listening. The music goes with the setting of the game incredibly well, and music picked for each track fits too.
More Sum41 would be amazing.
Bugs
Unfortunately Rising seems to have launched with more bugs than any previous Trials game. The previously mentioned performance issues being just the start.
- A rival rider's replay can cause the game to loose connection to the Ubisoft servers, making challenging the rival impossible.
- Custom tracks that the player has created may disappear from their list after a game reboot.
- Other players custom items don't show in the multiplayer lobby or player data screens.
- Gear crates are not added to the player's inventory on level up.
- Stickers can often project on to the opposite side of an item of clothing.
- music may not play in the menus after exiting the editor.
- Track Central skill games will show a random timestamp instead of the custom score value.
- After leaving a player data profile items in the store will not display their thumbnails.
There's more than this, but these strike me as some of the most commonly occurring ones.
Conclusion
Trials Rising, while suffering from what hopefully is just some teething issues, is a thoroughly enjoyable game, more so than Fusion, and I can see myself enjoying this game for many months, even years to come, as with the earlier titles. I will eagerly await the DLCs so I can get more of my fix on Trials, and can't wait to see more great tracks on Track Central. Hopefully in time Redlynx can also bolster the Track editor with more features. This is shaping up to be my favourite Trials entry to date.
Suggestions
-Reintroduce dynamic music from Fusion, with it's full functionality.
-Sponsor kits for motorcycles (such as KTMs).
-Make new player records not increase the hitbox of a track in the track selection/worldview menu.
-Reintroduce the Track Central UI of Evolution.
-Have TC return the player to the last page they were on instead of the Homepage after completing a track.
-Do not introduce a setting-ruining meme DLC like the last DLC of Fusion.
-Dual sport helmets have been in every previous Trials game. A good looking dual sport helmet (something like a Scorpion EXO-AT or Schuberth E1) would be amazing.
Thankyou soo much if you've taken the time to read all of this, and I apologize again if any of my wording was hard to read. Hopefully I've been clear and concise enough to get across everything I wanted to convey.
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